U.S. Army Captain Michael Kelvington, commander of the Battle company, 1-508 Parachute Infantry battalion, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, bows next to remains of Gulam Dostager, a member of Afghan Local Police who was killed in the blast of an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) during the joint Tor Janda (Black Flag in Pashtu) operation, in Zahri district of Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan May 25, 2012.  REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov  (AFGHANISTAN - Tags: MILITARY CIVIL UNREST CONFLICT TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY)

Reuters Photojournalism

Our day's top images, in-depth photo essays and offbeat slices of life. See the best of Reuters photography.  See more | Photo caption 

Members of the U.S. Navy Blue Angels fly over the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan as part of the 25th annual Fleet Week celebration in New York, May 23, 2012.  REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz (UNITED STATES - Tags: MILITARY ANNIVERSARY TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY)

Fleet Week

The U.S. Navy takes Manhattan for a week.  Slideshow 

Photo

The SpaceX mission

A privately owned unmanned rocket blasts off on a mission to be the first commercial flight to the International Space Station.  Slideshow 

White House mulls unwinding "too big to fail" firms

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner (R) listens as President Barack Obama announces new small business lending initiatives during a visit to an archive storage company in Landover, Maryland October 21, 2009. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner (R) listens as President Barack Obama announces new small business lending initiatives during a visit to an archive storage company in Landover, Maryland October 21, 2009.

Credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque

WASHINGTON | Mon Oct 26, 2009 11:25am EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A council that includes the U.S. Treasury Secretary would help set policy for dealing with troubled financial firms under White House plans to deal with the "too big to fail" problem, CNBC television said on Monday citing sources.

The Obama administration would give the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp authority to unwind large firms whose failure could threaten the overall economy.

Federal regulators say such "resolution authority" is crucial to ensuring that the market does not think that some firms will always be rescued by the government.

The U.S. government was forced to improvise last year in crises at big financial firms such as investment banks Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, as well as insurer AIG.

(Reporting by Rachelle Younglai; Editing by James Dalgleish)

Comments (0)
This discussion is now closed. We welcome comments on our articles for a limited period after their publication.